Playing leapfrog with Plato: Mimetic representation in the novel as described in Virginia Woolf's "The Waves", Julio Cortazar's "Rayuela" and Clarice Lispector's "Agua Viva".
Item
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Title
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Playing leapfrog with Plato: Mimetic representation in the novel as described in Virginia Woolf's "The Waves", Julio Cortazar's "Rayuela" and Clarice Lispector's "Agua Viva".
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Identifier
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AAI3169925
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identifier
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3169925
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Creator
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Hurbon, Douglas L.
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Contributor
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Adviser: John Brenkman
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Date
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2005
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Comparative | Literature, English | Literature, Latin American
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Abstract
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According to the theories of the novel portrayed in Virginia Woolf's The Waves, Julio Cortazar's Rayuela and Clarice Lispector's Agua Viva, mimesis is one of the factors that limits the novel's capacity to represent things objectively, that is, from without any given subject position. Mimesis is the mechanism by which artistic media construct fictive objects, like characters, histories or action. In the novel, this mechanism relies exclusively on the way our subjective consciousness constructs objects in time and space out of the linear series of sense impressions which comprises our interaction with the physical world. The linear imperatives of such a mechanism force all mimetic representations in the novel to be both singular and linear.;According to the theory presented in the three novels, any objective representation of the world must be plural, that is, perceived simultaneously from a multiplicity of human perspectives. The novel fails to achieve any form of objective representation because its mimetic mechanism can represent things only as they would appear to a single, subjective perspective. No two perspectives can be represented simultaneously. The inability to represent simultaneous perspectives limits the novel to presenting multiple perspectives as a linear series, one at a time. According to the three novels, any objective representation of more than one person in a world must present their multiple perspectives simultaneously, all at once.;The experience of being is defined phenomenologically, following Ricoeur's definition in Time and Narrative. This definition and its relation to the novel is compared and contrasted to the theories presented in the three novels. Woolf's novel portrays mimesis in scenes currently unfolding for the reader as steadfastly singular and linear. Cortazar's novel portrays the unification of those individual scenes in the novel into a single entity as also ultimately singular and subjective. Lispector's novel attempts to impede mimetic representation as a means of escaping its singular linearity.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
